Life is meant to be enjoyed

Over the past years I’ve come into the belief that life is meant to be enjoyed, and that life doesn’t have to be hard; in fact, life is meant to be enjoyed; it’s meant to be easy, and it’s meant to flow.

It felt like a big, obvious secret to discover, or more like, rediscover, because I think it’s a concept that I think we’re born knowing and, ideally, grow up embodying as freewheeling, playful, imaginative, open children. Then, most of us lose it or are convinced out of it, convinced otherwise, through this conditioned concept of “real life,” and the “real world” and such. (Especially in the U.S., I think! A country founded on the Puritan work ethic, where children were treated as “little adults,” where this world was a necessary, get-through-it earthly stopover to show just how worthy of deliverance to heaven in the afterlife, or whatever.) For more on this, too, I super, super recommend don Miguel Ruiz’s writings of Toltec teachings, like The Four Agreements, which talk about “the dream of the planet.”

I remember hearing at one point that…

Buddha’s famous quote “life is suffering,” is actually a imprecise translation. It’s more so that, “life is enduring,” and it speaks to the idea of the continuity, the forever flow of life.

It’s not a justification for suffering; not as setting ourselves up to expect that whole human experience to be that way. (And that’s the interesting thing about translation; it reveals so much about the values and energy of a culture. I loved reading and writing about this concept, especially in relation to Jorge Luis Borges’ writing on it when I studied Spanish literature in college. An aside.) I heard that so long ago I can’t remember when or from whom, but it’s stayed with my powerfully, “empowerfully,” I’ll invent a word to say, since.

So, here they are, the big secrets of life as I’ve intuited and discovered them so far, through my one narrow, singular and also somehow universal (as we all are!) lived experience.

  1. Life is meant to be enjoyed

  2. Life doesn’t have to be hard—in fact, life is meant to be easy, easeful

For Dawn, whose name alone represents the coming of light, and who has so gently and sweetly guided me through so much of my own spiritual exploration.

We're here, we may as well enjoy it

This thought started visiting me often, when I would find myself waiting in a line, on hold for something, existing in some between-space of time and/or place that really didn’t seem all that exciting, that wasn’t really my preference, but was what it needed to be then.

“I’m here; I may as well enjoy it.” I found myself saying. And, magically, I would almost automatically find a way to enjoy it. Something would become comical, I would come more into the present, or I would feel more like the whole situation was more mine, because I was choosing to make it into enjoyment. And I think that’s what it’s about, remembering that we deserve enjoyment, to live life in joy, regardless of the circumstances

Attention and appreciation make anything special. And when we can turn the mundane into the magical, I guess that’s called alchemy.

Joy is a practicality

Doing something because you want to, because the act alone of doing it brings joy, happiness, delight is reason enough to do it. Just knowing you want to, without knowing how you’ll feel, that’s also reason enough.

You don’t need a “practical” reason. Joy, being—are practicalities enough.